


Perpetuity

by unwindmyself



Series: this is the first time dreaming in these hues [2]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Afterlife, F/F, Female Friendship, Femslash, Fluff and Crack, Foursome - F/F/F/F, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Passive-aggression, Past Character Death, Polyamory, Reconciliation Sex, a precursor to, directed at canon that is, which is to say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-01-09 15:37:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because if even true death isn't the end, there are few nicer ways to pass the unfathomable lengths of time than keeping company with one's also-murdered kind of-ex/kind of-girlfriend and her also-murdered new friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. reconciling

“ _Dotter_?” Godric’s voice calls.  “There is someone here.”

Nora sits up, wrinkling her nose.  She’s not sure how long she’s been lazing around (time seems to have a way of falling away without warning here) but it must have been a while.  Furthermore, she’s not sure who her father could be referring to – unless – no, he’d have a different tone to his voice if that.  So then…

“Salome,” she whispers.

She’s not sure why it’s such a surprise, but somehow it is, and the look on her face must be betraying that, because the first thing Salome says is, “Don’t look so startled, _principessa_.”

Against her better judgment, perhaps, Nora smiles just slightly at the endearment.  She leans on one hand and attempts to quip, “Are you just paying a social call, then?  Welcome to the neighborhood?”

A joke, as she knows that whatever this is and wherever they are, that’s no description that would be rightfully attributed to it.   If she doesn’t know something, she plays it off.  It’s safer.

Salome’s own smile doesn’t waver.  “I heard about what happened,” she says.

Nora sets her mouth in a line, saying nothing.

“I know you were willing to die for your brother,” Salome continues.  “But I suspect this wasn’t what you had in mind.”

“Why do you care?” Nora asks.  “If I hadn’t, I’d still be – working against…”

“I knew,” Salome says instead of explaining.  “That something was wrong the last time you kissed me.  I knew it would be the _last_.  I’ve always known how to read you.”

“But you let me – ”

“I had other priorities,” Salome shrugs dismissively, and she holds a hand out to Nora anyway.

Facing the idea of forever, such things seem so important.

Facing the _actuality_ of forever, they don’t have any weight at all.


	2. introducing

“The others are eager to meet you,” Salome coos, steering Nora toward what’s become their usual gathering place.

Nora wrinkles her nose delicately. “I would never have taken you for the routine social outing type,” she jokes, though what it means is _I’m not that type either_.

“It’s not like there’s much else for us to do here,” the petite redhead on the chaise lounge calls out, grinning toothily.

Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq of Louisiana.

“I suppose not,” Nora shrugs, raising an eyebrow at the former monarch. Oddly enough, she’s wearing nothing more than a fifties-looking black lingerie set.

“You like?” Sophie-Anne chirps upon seeing she’s been noticed, standing and giving a twirl. “The dress I died in was lovely, but so _gloomy_. It would figure that I spent almost all of my time wearing white and I just happened to be wearing black the night I went. So I improvised.”

Nora glances down at the nightgown she’s got on. “I’d much rather a black dress than this,” she says.

Without warning, the auburn-haired woman springs up and starts tugging on the white cotton, pinning and ripping. “It’s a bit grunge,” she says once she’s finished, “But it’s better than someone else’s pajamas for eternity.”

Lorena Krasiki, last seen in Mississippi.

Nora tries for a grateful smile. “It probably is,” she agrees. “I don’t suppose there’s anything that explains why we’re stuck in whatever clothes we – while whatever this place is seems perfectly capable of providing furniture out of nowhere?”

Salome smiles fondly. “Little bird,” she chuckles. “Always more comfortable with known quantities.”


	3. explaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personal speculation and beliefs and meta-commentary ahead.

“We’ve all heard each other’s stories,” Sophie-Anne says coolly. “Rite of passage. Tell us, just how did that usurping tool see to your end?”

Nora makes a face. “It’s a touch more complicated than that,” she hesitates, “But – well, I’d been poisoned, let’s say, and my brother took me to Bill to save me, since he’s… well.”

“Give me a break,” Lorena mutters.

“And anyway, he didn’t follow through,” Nora continues.

“Of course not,” Salome exclaims. “There’s a reason we’re here and he isn’t.”

“Yes, because he’s the worst kind of dick,” Lorena declares. “The kind that thinks he’s righteous. Even before he found religion he was like that.”

“I should have thought of it, should have told my brother not to take me there,” Nora frowns. “It wouldn’t be worth it. I could see what Bill intended, just looking at his face. I knew I was going to be left to die. But I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t even warn – well, I wasn’t quite myself, I’m afraid.”

“At least you went somewhat peacefully,” Lorena shrugs. “And not at the hands of that _fuck’s_ little blonde Disney princess.”

“Sookie?” Nora clarifies. “She wasn’t nearly the worst human I had ever met. Eric quite likes her.”

“Figures,” Lorena rolls her eyes.

“And you got to say goodbye,” Salome adds. “That’s a kindness.”

“Yes,” Nora agrees. “At least there was that.”

Sophie-Anne has been quiet through all of this, considering the story and situation, but finally she declares, “Congratulations.”

“What for?” Nora laughs.

“I think you may have had the most passive-aggressive death here.”


	4. inviting

“ _So_ ,” Sophie-Anne says grandly, resting her chin in her hands. “Would you care to make it official?”

Nora’s never been good at paying attention to anything else when Salome’s hands are on her, which they currently are (in the tamest of ways possible; they don’t really get sore, but shoulder rubs still feel good) and noticing the spoken words takes the other woman’s nudging her gently and whispering, “Our little queen asked you a question, _cara_.”

Immediately, Nora looks up, slightly startled. “Repeat it, please?” she murmurs.

“Making it official,” Sophie-Anne says.

“What’s that?” Nora asks.

“Well, you've already done it, more or less,” Lorena explains, “But we can celebrate if it’s on the proverbial record. Joining our club.”

“Club,” Nora repeats. “You mean the one that’s just all of us sitting around like this?”

“I call it the Fuck You Bill Compton Club,” Sophie-Anne giggles. “It’s a little blunt, but it’s kicky.”

Nora bursts out laughing, which prompts Salome to nudge her again. “Now, now,” she says.

“You don’t need to chide me,” Nora exclaims, turning her head to stare at Salome pointedly. “I think it’s a cute name, a bit childish but cute, and of course I’ll join, on one condition.”

“That’s new,” Lorena muses. It’s not like there are many available conditions in this place.

“If – mind you, I don’t want this to happen any time soon – _if_ my brother should… find himself here,” Nora begins, “He’s allowed to join too.”

“Oh,” Sophie-Anne sniffs. “He’s sort of a –”

“Yes, I know,” Nora interrupts. “He’s an asshole sometimes, but he’s my brother, and I love him.”

Salome raises an eyebrow. “I know how much he means to you,” she concedes, “so I’m in favor of allowing it. But he won’t be invited to celebrate anything with us.”

Nora tips her head. “And why is that?”

“It’s simple,” Sophie-Anne grins. “‘Celebrate’ is a coy euphemism for ‘lesbian orgy.’”


	5. celebrating

“Lie down,” Sophie-Anne orders – most things come off sounding like orders from her, honestly, side-effect of formerly being royalty and all that – and she rises from her chaise lounge and motions to it in one fluid motion. By now all four of them are naked as can be, and Salome has unpinned her hair (she knows how Nora likes it most).

Nora tilts her head, just slightly unsure (she’s not good at being ordered around so directly by most) but she does, taking up the spot that Sophie-Anne recently vacated and arranging herself like a princess of legend for want of a better idea.

“Tradition,” Lorena explains wryly, seeing Nora’s confused expression. She waves a hand in Salome’s direction, shrugging. “When _she_ showed up, Sophie and I treated her, now it’s your turn.”

“Celebrating,” Nora echoes with a laugh. “Fair warning, I’m not the best at sharing.” When Salome is present, anyway.

“No, but right now you don’t have to be,” Salome says, her tone darkening in such a way that Nora bites her lip like a schoolgirl and nods fervently. “Right now you’re going to lie back and you’re not going to move even a little bit until we say so and until we’ve had a chance to make you happy.”

This will be fun. Lorena and Sophie-Anne and Salome hadn’t known each other in life, barely even known _of_ each other if anything, so they’d all spent a fair amount of time guessing at what would get each other off best. Now that they’re adding Salome’s honest to goodness _girlfriend_ into the mix, well, there will be no more guessing.

For example: the way Sophie-Anne’s command made Nora wary but Salome’s quite clearly aroused her. That’s good to know, they can work with that.

“Think about it this way,” Sophie-Anne declares, casually making to straddle Nora’s hips. Despite the fact that chancellors outrank queens by a _lot_ and it’s not like any of their titles really matter anymore, she insists that it’s also tradition for queens to get first tastes of the willing. “Dying is _so_ stressful, it’s only appropriate to have someone – or someones, as the case may be – to put you at ease.”

“In the least appropriate way possible,” Lorena adds with a smirk. She moves to the end of the chaise lounge, lifts Nora’s legs so they rest in her lap and begins to massage her calves and ankles. Salome drags the bench over to sit behind Nora’s head, reaches for one of her hands to hold but leaves the other one free (she knows the little queen’s tricks by now).

None of them had been particular optimists, but this is a way to make the best of a situation if ever there was one.


	6. propitiating

“Hey.”

There’s apparently no club meeting in the near future (these things are rarely discussed, they just happen) so Nora’s been out wandering the… blank, bright landscape, and she half-expects one of the others to have come to find her, but that’s not at all who’s staring at her when she turns around.

“Hello yourself,” Nora murmurs.

Before her is none other than Molly Bristow, late of the Authority’s technical department, with her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket and the most skeptical of looks on her face. (She always had a face that did skepticism well.)

“Everything sort of turned to shit, huh?” Molly says bluntly. Pleasantries have never been her style.

And suddenly they’re both sitting on the ground, staring up at the nothing above them, Molly’s jacket tossed aside. “I know what you tried to do, how you – tried to help when I wasn’t thinking right,” Nora begins. “I’m sorry it led to…”

Molly raises an eyebrow. “It was crazy in there,” she points out. “Who says I was doing it just for you?”

“I didn’t say anything of the sort!” Nora exclaims, almost smiling (she suspects she’s being teased, at least a little). “I’m sorry _for_ the crazy. It wasn’t fair that you wound up – well, here, because of it.”

“Stuff happens,” Molly declares. “Can’t say I was too thrilled about it, but it could’ve been worse.”

“That doesn’t change that I’m sorry,” Nora presses. “I feel awful about it.”

“Well, there’s not much you can do about it now,” Molly shrugs.

“I can apologize,” Nora says stubbornly. “I can try to make it up to you.”

“And how’s that?”

“You know perfectly well how.”

Some of the electricity that came with kissing in life is gone here, but that doesn’t make it any less nice.


	7. teasing

“Does your other girlfriend want to join our club too?” Salome asks coyly.

To which Nora just rolls her eyes. “You sound jealous,” she retorts.

“We’re all friends here,” Salome counters.

“Did you extend the invitation before I showed up?” Nora asks.

“She didn’t come out to socialize before you showed up, _cara_ ,” Salome points out.

“I suspect there’s a reason for that,” Nora says. “You know she does blame you, too.”

Salome rolls her eyes, waves her hand. “As is her right,” she says lightly. “I don’t expect any less. What I wanted demanded it.”

They don’t talk about the politics of that situation any more than that (it will probably be another formless decade or two before they can bring themselves to that, right now it would just cause arguments) but Salome promptly flops down onto the ground and pulls Nora with her.

“You didn’t refute what I said earlier,” Nora whispers, butting her head against Salome’s shoulder.

“What?”

“About being jealous,” Nora says. “I think you always were of Molly, just a little bit.”

“You and I always had an agreement,” Salome shrugs. “I was never jealous of your brother –”

“You didn’t know about my brother,” Nora interrupts.

“Once I found out I wasn’t jealous,” Salome corrects. “And you weren’t jealous of Roman –”

“Roman was an arse,” Nora says plainly.

“Be that as it may,” Salome continues, trying not to laugh, “I was never jealous of any of your other lovers any more than you were of mine.”

“I got jealous of some of them,” Nora admits. “I was jealous of Bill, while everything was… I didn’t like that you might be in glory and he would be at your side.”

Salome chuckles fondly. “You know that wouldn’t have been the case, not truly,” she murmurs, turning her head to plant a kiss on Nora’s cheek. “It was always the two of us first. Which means that _now_ , I know what might make you happy and I want you to have it. We’ve that luxury.”

“Oh, I’m going to have Molly, much as she wants me to,” Nora declares. “But she’s still not interested in joining the club.”

“Never say never, _principessa_ ,” Salome declares.


	8. challenging

“It’s all getting fucked up,” Nora declares, sighing.

“Why do you even bother still keeping up with what goes on down there?” Lorena asks her. “It’s not like we can do anything about it.”

Nora shrugs. “Occasionally, perhaps, we can,” she says. She doesn’t want to get into what happened with her and her brother and Godric, because she’s not even sure how much of it was real, but it was real enough. “And really, that’s not the point.”

“It’s different for her,” Salome defends, resting a hand on Nora’s shoulder. “She’s still got family.”

“And they’re either bloody fools or babies,” Nora explains, sounding slightly aggravated. “Clearly nobody else is going to watch after them.”

“Your father,” Sophie-Anne suggests with the slightest roll of her eyes.

“To an extent,” Nora concedes. “But he never met Tara or Willa and…” She makes a face. “The poor things.”

“Was she always this soft-hearted?” Lorena asks Salome, sounding mildly amused.

Nora scoffs. “It’s not _softness_ , it’s basic decency,” she retorts. “Especially since so much of the situation that they’re stuck in is indirectly my fault somewhat, I feel responsible.”

“It wasn’t your fault that your death triggered your brother’s suicidal world travels,” Sophie-Anne points out. “That’s his own lack of impulse control.”

That’s only somewhat what Nora was talking about, but she’s not going to get into it further.

“Still,” she says instead, reaching for Salome’s hand. “You can’t say you’ve never been frustrated that you can’t change a situation now that you’re here?”

“You mean, other than the situation where Bill motherfucking Compton usurped my throne?” Sophie-Anne says coolly. “I suppose I feel bad that I left my sweet little Hadley so unceremoniously.”

“Exactly like that,” Nora exclaims. “I’ve just got more to worry on.”

A look of concern flashes over her face.

“Well, shit,” she says.

And there’s Tara Thornton, looking thoroughly unimpressed as she gives a single wave.


End file.
